Adventures in Running Parte Dos (Part 2)

Tuesday morning I went for a long run. The goal was to run about 8 miles, so I woke up twenty minutes earlier than usual to give myself some extra time, if I felt that I was comfortable with this distance as I was running.

And even though I was outside for the period of time I had hoped, not all of that time was spent running.

Tuesday’s run included:

1) Various smelly garbage bins making breathing difficult. In one neighborhood it was garbage day! Nothing beats the smell of fresh trash.
2) Getting sprayed with a sprinkler while I was trying to carefully avoid puddles from another sprinkler. So it wasn’t that bad. I actually laughed a little bit, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as some might.

3) Tripping about halfway into my run. Apparently I am incapable of lifting my feet more than half an inch off the ground, because I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. I can only imagine what I looked like, flying into the air, landing on my hands and knee, and rolling over, finally stopping on my back. Initially, it looked a lot worse than it did below (I took this picture when I got home from work, so it was more than 12 hours later).

With blood from my knee running down my leg (not an exaggeration), I figured I was already a little over three miles from my house so I might as well finish the run. I actually stopped in a local diner to get a band-aid for my knee, but since I sweat an abnormal amount, it fell off literally five seconds after I put it on.

I finished out my run and unfortunately, with tripping, stopping for traffic, and stopping to get a band-aid, I wasn’t able to run the 8 miles I had planned. I ended up doing 6.8 again. On the bright side though, I ran an average of 30 seconds per mile faster than I did a week ago, so that made me happy.

I’m actually now looking into a half marathon that will be taking place in the beginning of August. I am going to see how my training goes throughout July, but I am seriously considering it. The only problem is that the race plus the cost of a hotel will put me around $300, which I think is a bit much…but I do think it would be an awesome first half marathon to do.